One Hundred Years of Cantaloupe
by Mala
Summary: A sequel to "Love In the Time of Cauliflower", slightly more serious. As is Dean's frustration with Lorelai. *g*


Title: "One Hundred Years of Cantaloupe"  
  
Author: Mala  
  
E-mail: malisita@yahoo.com  
  
Fandom: "Gilmore Girls"  
  
Rating/Classification: 'R', Lorelai/Dean, humor, angst.  
  
Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own them.  
  
Summary: A sequel to "Love in the Time of Cauliflower". They WON'T shut up. Especially Lorelai. And that is exactly Dean's problem.  
  
He's re-stacking a pile of cantaloupes in a nice triangular formation when he feels the warm whisper against his ear that makes him tense up and glance, quickly, around the market for eyes not attached to potatoes. Husky, seductive, and...oh, yeah...  
  
But "I'm placing you under citizen's arrest..." is not exactly what he hopes to hear come from her pouty lips.  
  
"What?" He blushes as he drops a fruit and has to start over. Taylor is anal. It has to be a pyramid. Not a pile. "Why am I under arrest?"  
  
He should know better than to ask. Lorelai's blue eyes are full of mischief and dizzying logic and her mouth lets it all loose. "Those cantaloupe? Are they ripe? 'Cause I'm thinkin' they don't look ripe. Ergo, they're minors. And you're contributing to the deliquency of under- ripe fruit with all your suggestive fondling. So, up against the wall and spread 'em, Mister Eighteen-Is-Enough."  
  
Who besides Lorelai would use "ergo" in a sentence? Then again, who besides Lorelai would accuse him of "fruit fondling"? He swallows hard, attempting to put the cantaloupes in some semblance of geometric order even as his body jerks to life under the tight apron. "Taylor is going to ban you from this place one of these days," he murmurs, glad there isn't a wall for her to spread him against. Glad...and not-so-glad.  
  
"I made the last produce boy cry," she informs, helpfully, brushing one palm down his front like a good little ex-girlfriend's-mother who's just dusting lint or getting a smudge.  
  
He grits his teeth and grabs her hand as Mrs. Zimmerman wheels her cart around the corner like she's trying to qualify for the Indy 500. "I'm crying on the inside," he assures.  
  
And she's a fine person to be accusing him of contributing to anything's deliquency...considering that he's only recently been all nice and legal. She was so happy that she made a "Happy Non-Statutory Day" card out of construction paper and met him in the stockroom wearing nothing but aluminum foil. Saran Wrap, she informed him, was so overdone. Foil was the new pink.  
  
When he snaps out of his Lorelai-induced haze, she's telling Mrs. Z something about rhubarbs and how people in the background of movies are supposed to say "rhubarbrhubarbrhubarb" so it looks like they're saying something of consequence when the camera moves past them. The vaguely panicked look in the old lady's eyes is soon followed by a screech of wheels as she sets off towards frozen foods and salvation.  
  
"Scaring produce boys AND running off customers." He clicks his tongue, setting the final cantaloupe back atop the glorious replica of Cheops he spent an hour constructing. "You've had a busy day. Ever thought of joining the some top secret government agency as their staff torturer?"  
  
Lorelai is the least self-conscious, least insultable, person he's ever met. She shrugs, grinning in a way that can only be described as 'evil'...with a hefty side of 'be afraid, be very afraid.' "It's all part of my plot."  
  
"What's your plot?" The questions are always terrible. He always asks them. You'd think he would've learned his lesson by now.  
  
"To drive you crazy enough to run out of here screaming and be waiting for you by your motorcycle so you can whisk me away like Michelle Pffeifer's 'Cool Rider' in 'Grease 2'." She begins to hum the song...looking around for ladders. "Actually, you sort of look like Maxwell Caulfield. Floppy hair and all. And he's married to the old lady who plays the witch on 'Passions'. Nice to know we have competition in the Scary May/December Romance Pageant, isn't it?"  
  
"I am NOT going to run out of here screaming." Although, really, it's looking like a very viable option. And he repeats the statement like a mantra in the hopes that it drives away the blinding panic and the raging hard-on that always seem to materialize when Lorelai's around. "I'm not going to run out of here screaming. I'm not going to run out of here screaming."  
  
She smiles and leans forward to whisper in his ear again. "If you don't...I'm going to jump you right here. And I don't even care if my kid walks in and sees us getting our collective freak on."  
  
It could be an empty threat. She doesn't want to hurt Rory. She never has. But this is Lorelai Gilmore. The Aluminum Foil Porn Queen of Star's Hollow. He can't take the chance. Cantaloupe molestation be damned. He whips the green apron over his head and bolts for the door, yelling, "I'VE HAD IT!"  
  
***  
  
"'Chances Are'," she suggests, taking her underwear off one of the handlebars and climbing back into them. "Cybill Shepherd. Mary Stuart Masterson. You know...that one movie about the dead guy getting reincarnated."  
  
He raises himself up on his elbows, laughing, despite himself, at her attempts to find some other movie *besides* "The Graduate" to compare them to. "Oh, so now I'm not Rainman, I'm Robert Downey, Jr.? My new coke habit and I love you, too, Lorelai."  
  
She cocks her head as she effortlessly fastens her bra . "You don't, you know."  
  
The pier is warm beneath his bare back when it should be freezing cold. Just like the lakeshore is empty except for them when it should be teeming with kids. They've been lucky with the contradictions and the sneaking around thus far. "I don't what?"  
  
"Love me. This is just a thing. A kinky sex thing." She looks so serious all of a sudden that it's more frightening than when she's on a tangent. "You know one key thing about all these movies where the guy dates Mom and kid? The guy always ends up with the daughter."  
  
He sits up, reaching for his jeans and shaking them out. "Are you saying you want me to end up with Rory? Because I think we're pretty much over. Tom-and-Nicole-and -the-tabloids over," he elaborates with a chuckle.  
  
"Penelope Cruz has better legs than Jess," she murmurs, absently. "But no. Not Rory, Sailor. I get that the ship has sailed. You remember what I told you about underage fruit? Under-ripe cantaloupe doesn't stay that way for long. You're going to ripen."  
  
He gapes at her. And not just because she's half-naked and unbelievably stacked. "And what...suddenly you'll be too mature for me? That's insane troll logic."  
  
"No." She shakes her head, sighing, and drops to her knees on the dock. "You'll be too mature for *me*," she assures, patting his cheek like a maiden aunt. "You're graduating high school in two months...going off to college. This thing we've got will end and you'll look back on it like it was some hideous Lifetime original movie with Valerie Bertinelli playing me and that kid from '90210' playing you."  
  
He has no comeback for that. Except a stammered, "H-hey...! Two months is still a long way away, okay?" and a fierce kiss against her suddenly down-turned mouth.  
  
She kisses him back too hard, whispering, "Then, let's make it the best two months you've ever had, huh?"  
  
He tries for a smile. Succeeds as he gasps for breath, slides his thumbs under the thin straps of her flowered panties. "Well, except for that summer I went to hockey camp and the only female goalie in the league...Tammy Foster...let me feel her up after practice every night. That might be the pinnacle of my young life."  
  
She crawls into his lap as her underwear finds itself hanging on his motorcycle again. "You're starting to scare me," she confides, the twinkle moving, slowly, back into her gorgeous eyes.  
  
He's surrounded by warmth, by glorious Lorelai heat. And words are starting to fail him. But he manages to bite out, "I don't see you crying yet."  
  
If her voice is just a little choked when she snaps back her reply...later, they'll both attribute it to the fact that the sex between them is just that mind-blowing. Or global warming. Or Republicans. Or fruit fondling.  
  
And nothing else.  
  
"I'm crying on the inside."  
  
--end-  
  
March 7, 2003. 


End file.
